At one point in her illness, for a period of weeks, Anna O. declined to drink and would quench her thirst with fruit and melons. One evening, in a state of self-induced hypnosis, she described an occasion when she said she had been disgusted by the sight of a dog drinking out of a glass. Soon after this she asked for a drink and then woke from her hypnosis with a glass at her lips.

In his published account of the case, written some twelve years later, Breuer treated the story which Anna O. had related in a trance as a true account of an incident which had given rise to her aversion to drinking. He said he had concluded that the way to cure any symptom of hysteria was to have the patient recall the original traumatic incident that led led to the symptom and bring about emotional catharsis by inducing the patient to express any feeling associated with it.

The disappearance of one of her symptoms, Breuer felt, warranted his decision to style it as an official “therapeutic technical procedure.” (Again similar to LRH. Any temporary placebo effect warranted taking the “procedure” that preceded it as effective, and the underlying theory into a “system.”

According to both Freud and Breuer, this method had been applied systematically to each of Anna’s symptoms and as a result she was cured completely of her hysteria. In reality, however, historical records show that when Breuer stopped treating Anna O. she was not becoming better but progressively worse, and she was ultimately institutionalized, and Breuer hoped that she would die to end her suffering.

Another Scientology-style success.